Dear Dharma,
I hope you can help me! I just recently discovered you and like you a lot.
My husband and I are both in our late 20’s and have been married for 3 years. I am a bit behind the curve on the whole social media thing, but have been on Facebook for a while.
A friend convinced me I needed to be on Instagram too, so I signed up and started connecting to everyone I know who was on it, my friends, family and hubby.
Soon it was apparent that my husband constantly Liked half naked pictures from all sorts of sketchy women, because he had everything in his account public. Oh well, just pictures right? Except some of the “ladies” are people on the edges of our social crowd, and he has had contact with them at various times.
When I asked him about this, he freaked, and accused me of creeping his phone and spying on him. I explained that everyone could see it, and next thing I know he deletes his Instagram account.
Well, fast forward a few weeks and I find out that he has a new account with all of his work and sports friends added, but not me or my friends. And all the same girls from before…
Am I overreacting? He clearly wants to hide this from me, should I confront him?
Trouble in Instagramland
Dear Trouble,
Wow. A whole lot of red flags going up over here in Dharmaland.
Your husband’s overreaction to your question reeks of guilt. Additionally, the fact that he deflected and made you the problem is concerning. It shows signs of manipulation and control that I’m not liking.
You being concerned with his interaction with half naked “ladies” is not the problem, it’s his interaction with half naked ladies!
To follow that up, he deletes his account, reopens his account and reconnects with everyone again – oh, except his wife… which does nothing but compound the shadiness of this whole deal.
So are you overreacting? No, I don’t think so.
Should you confront him? Well, yes, but you’ve already tried that with no success. It actually pushed him farther into hiding…
The first thing you actually need to do is decide what you can live with. If lying, hiding and sneaking are something you can turn a blind eye to for the long haul, then you’ll probably be okay.
However, if this is going to eat away at you and make you question every move he makes, then you’re going to need an action plan.
If there’s no trust in a relationship, the end result is going to be no relationship, full stop. That’s the message you need to get across to your husband. Not in an accusing way, not in a hysterical way, but in a very matter of fact, stone cold sober kind of way.
He’s likely going to try and convince you that you are the problem once again, but don’t buy it. Furthermore, let him know that ploy is getting old fast.
And then what… well, I guess you need to have some thoughts as to how you would like to move forward in rebuilding the trust that’s been broken.
Does that mean full disclosure when it comes to phones and social media? Does it mean counselling, whether just for you or jointly?
One thing for sure, it was to mean some pretty serious conversations about the future of your relationship. As it stands, the ground beneath is pretty shaky.
Dharma
Dear Dharma,
I have a milestone birthday later this year. Let’s just say I’m 30 again.
It feels like I am supposed make it a big deal but to be perfectly honest I don’t really care and I’m not entirely happy with where my relationship status ended up at this stage in my life.
Am I expected to celebrate it in some big way?
Just Another Birthday
Dear JAB,
Ahhh, 30 again… that’s not such a bad place to be, in the scope of things… one day it will be “80 again”, and you’ll look back on this and think what a pup you were.
If the main reason you aren’t into a big celebration this year is simply because you don’t care and genuinely see it as just another birthday, then I’d say fine! You’re under no obligation to make a big deal out of something that isn’t.
Yet, there’s a swoosh of undercurrent here that is possibly the bigger picture. It sounds like disappointment, fear of judgement, or even punishment… like you don’t deserve a birthday celebration because your status isn’t what you expected it to be.
Dharma’s talked about this before in Blame It on Disney, the way we are set up to believe that everything just falls into place once we’re “adults”. Then, in real life, when things go every which way but what we thought, we are left feeling as failures.
I’m catching a glimpse of that in your question, and if I’m right, then I would ask you to reconsider your reasoning.
I guess I’m saying do you want to let your sense of embarrassment colour how you move through life? Especially because you have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about!
Your friends don’t want to celebrate with you because you’re in a relationship/not in relationship, they want to celebrate milestones with you because they love you!
And I’ll ask you this – when you are 80 again, will you look back and wish you’d taken more opportunities to celebrate anything and everything along the way or will you be glad you dug in your heels and missed out on the party…
How about this… You promise Dharma you’ll dig into this a bit deeper and be open to the possibility of changing your mindset on this and Dharma promises she won’t send 30 pink flamingos to your front yard.
Deal?
Dharma
Dear Dharma is an advice columnist who strives to be fair, firm and funny all while dispensing sound advice to your everyday problems. Questions regarding family, friends and spouses, problems on the job, etiquette dilemmas – if you can think of it, it’s probably been asked!
To find out more about Dharma and to read some of the great advice she’s given, check out her website at
